Graphics related applications such as, for example, three dimensional (3D) rendering and media player applications, may not have privileges that provide for direct access to graphic processing unit (GPU) resources. Accordingly, a given graphics application residing at the relatively unprivileged “Ring 3” protection level (e.g., lacking system level privileges) might load a graphics user mode driver (UMD), which in turn submits workloads to an operating system (OS) and/or kernel mode driver (KMD) residing at the “Ring 0” protection level (e.g., having system level privileges). The OS may, for example, manage memory operations such as paging and the KMD may, for example, populate GPU command buffers and hardware registers with commands corresponding to the submitted workloads, wherein the GPU may use the commands to execute the workloads. The intermediate processing of the workloads by the OS and KMD may add to central processing unit (CPU) overhead and increase processing latency, which may have a negative impact on performance, power consumption and/or battery life.